Transcript Japanese Internment - Ms. Belur's World & US History

Warm Up

Please get started reading the Seattle Times article
on your desk. When you are finished, discuss as a
table group…
– From the reading:
 Why were Japanese on Bainbridge Island the first to get
internment orders?
 How many people were exiled? With how much notice?
 How did internment effect Hayashida’s family?
– From prior knowledge/experience:
 What do you know about the internment of Japanese Americans
during WWII?
 Does your family or anyone you know have a connection with
this event?
Japanese Internment
Pearl Harbor’s Impact on the
Japanese
At time of Pearl
Harbor…
 More than 119,000
people of Japanese
ancestry lived on the
west coast
 2/3 of them American
citizens

Fears of further attacks and
anti-Japanese sentiment increased

American
propaganda
encouraged racist
attitudes towards
Japanese people
Internment Authorized

FDR signed Executive
Order No. 9066 in
February of 1942.

It empowered the U.S.
Army to designate areas
from which "any or all
persons may be
excluded.”

110,000 Japanese
Americans were placed in
internment camps
Government video clip
WHY WERE JAPANESE
AMERICANS INTERNED?
Discuss.
(30 seconds silent. 1 1/2 minutes as a group.)
What were some reasons offered for
internment?
 Does it portray internment as positive or
negative?
 Who do you think the audience for the
news reel is?


March 24, 1942
The first Civilian Exclusion
Order issued by the Army
is issued for the
Bainbridge Island area
near Seattle.
(www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/od9066ph.html)
Bainbridge High School students cut class to bid
farewell to classmates. March 1942
Seattle Ferry Landing. People crowded into the
overhead walkway to watch internees leave.
A second grade
classroom in
Seattle before
and after
internment
Internment & Seattle
King County
had 9,600
JapaneseAmericans
who were
interned
 12,892 from
Washington
state

Relocation Center
Puyallup
Fairgrounds
 Barracks in
converted
livestock stalls

Japanese Internment Camp Locations

Military
areas
included the
western
portion of
California,
Oregon and
Washington,
and part of
Arizona.
Internment
Japanese near trains during Relocation
Internment camp Manzanar in California.
Housing in a Japanese Relocation camp
Exit Ticket:
Triangle, Square, Circle
 3 most important points of today
 Something that “squares” (matches up/already
knew) with your thinking.
 Something still “circling” (something that is still
unclear)
WARM UP:
Each table group has a question from yesterdays exit ticket. Look it
over as a group. Be ready to share out at 2:03
EXIT TICKET QUESTIONS
How many Japanese spies were in the US?
We don’t know. January 25, 1942 release of
the Roberts Commission report on the Pearl
Harbor attack that cited “widespread
espionage in Hawaii before Pearl Harbor,
both by Japanese consular agents and
by Japanese residents of Oahu." (later
proved not to have been true)
What were the conditions in the camps like?

“The camp that I had to go to was Amache, in Colorado,
And it hit 25 below zero. And one has to be very familiar
how to live in areas of below zero like 25 below because
you just don’t grab the doorknobs without being careful.
Otherwise, you leave all your skin on the doorknob.”

The camps were generally located in remote, desert
areas. Internees lived in rickety barracks barely heated
by wood stoves and ate in crowded mess halls; guards
in gun towers watched the perimeter of the camps and
shot those who tried to escape. But most adapted as
best they could to life behind barbed wire.
Did people die in the internment
camps? How many?
Some Japanese Americans died in the camps
due to inadequate medical care and the
emotional stresses they encountered. Several
were killed by military guards posted for
allegedly resisting orders.
 Health studies have shown a 2 times greater
incidence of heart disease and premature death
among former internees, compared to
noninterned Japanese Americans.

How long did it last?
Closure of the Camps started in 1944, 2 ½
years after Exec. Order 9066
 Last camp closed in Nov. 1945

Why didn’t they resist? Did they go willingly?
Was there any resistance?

Almost no one protested the government’s decision, and most nonJapanese took the evacuations in stride. But some were troubled by the
removal of their friends and neighbors. “These students that we were going
to school with, they were like our family,” said Dolores Silva of
Sacramento. “And all of a sudden they said you have to leave within three
days. And it was a terrible shock to us. And they were, like taking away my
brothers and sisters. And I just felt so bad and we were just, we had our
arms around each other that last day of school and we were all crying.
Because we didn’t want them to go. It was not fair.”
Why didn’t they resist? Did they go willingly?
Was there any resistance?

When told that the Japanese were put in those
camps for their own protection, countered "If we
were put there for our protection, why were the
guns at the guard towers pointed inward,
instead of outward?“
Documents B & C
Discuss. Docs B & C
(30 seconds silent. 1 1/2 minutes as a group.)
Did your hypothesis change?
 Do you find these docs more or less
trustworthy?
 Why is the date of the Munson Report
important?

KOREMATSU V. UNITED
STATES
Supreme Court Case:
Korematsu vs. U.S.

In 1944, Korematsu
challenged internment before
the Supreme Court.

Knowingly violated Civilian
Exclusion Order No. 34 of the
U.S. Army.

Arrested and convicted.
The Supreme Court had to
decide:
Was internment
constitutional?
th
5

Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the
land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual
service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any
person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in
jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself,
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law;
nor shall private property be taken for public use, without
just compensation.
Korematsu v. United
States
The Government’s Argument
(pro-internment)
Japanese people could be
spies
 No way to tell loyal from
disloyal
 Japanese people were unAmerican

Korematsu’s Argument
(anti-internment)

Targeting people of
Japanese ancestry was
discrimination based on
race – against
Constitution

Can’t be deprived of life,
liberty or property w/o
due process
The Supreme Court
THE SUPREME COURT’S
DECISION

The Court upheld the order as “protection
against espionage and against sabotage”
– Necessary to protect the country
40 Years Later…

The U.S. officially
apologized for the
internment in the
1980s and paid
reparations totaling
$1.2 billion.

In 1998, President
Bill Clinton named
Fred Korematsu a
recipient of the
Presidential Medal of
Freedom.
Docs D & E
Discuss. Docs D & E
(30 seconds silent. 1 1/2 minutes as a group.)
Which of these documents has a better
explanation of Japanese internment?
Why?
 Final hypothesis. Why were Japanese
Americans interned in WWII?

FREEDOM VS. SECURITY
TODAY
Freedom vs. Security:
Guantanamo Bay

In 2004, Korematsu filed a brief
in the case of Rasul v. Bush, in
which Guantanamo detainees
challenged their detention as
enemy combatants by the Bush
administration.

In the brief, Korematsu argued,
"The extreme nature of the
government’s position in these
cases is reminiscent of its
positions in past episodes, in
which the United States too
quickly sacrificed civil liberties
in the rush to accommodate
overbroad claims of military
necessity."
Freedom vs. Security

Other examples?
– Patriot Act

Attitude inventory item 9. What did you
say?
– If America feels that some of its citizens
support a country that we are at war with, the
US has the right to put them in prison?

Where should we draw the line between
giving up freedoms for security?